Opinion: Can housing in California’s urban areas ever be affordable again?

To the editor: Steve Lopez is right that there is room — and great need — for sensible residential development. The problem is to provide housing at a price that those without housing can afford. (“The house I bought for $130,000 in 1983 is now worth a fortune, and that’s a big problem for California,” Sept. 9)

When someone asks me how high home prices can go, I answer, “Let me tell you from where prices have come.”

My wife and I purchased our first home in Westchester in 1953 for $13,000. That home today is valued at $1.3 million. Increasing demand for homes and shrinking supply are to blame. More homes is one solution, and with sensible growth that is possible But more homes at moderate cost is really difficult to achieve along California’s coast.

For example, a new residential tract just opening in Irvine that is many miles from the coast has homes that are priced from $1 million. Your children will tell your grandchildren about this price, and your grandchildren will ask, “At that price, why didn’t you buy up a lot of those?”

Martin A. Brower, Corona del Mar

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To the editor: Lopez’s column is tragically juxtaposed in the print edition with the story about unsheltered people seen as a nuisance on the Santa Ana trail in Anaheim. (“Anaheim considers declaring local emergency as homeless population continues to grow along Santa Ana River trail,” Sept. 9)

The root cause of the intolerance of people experiencing homelessness is the oldest human instinct. In the earliest days of our species, tribalism induced automatic alarm at the sight of the “other.” Homelessness should be different because once homeless people are housed, they aren’t homeless people anymore — they’re just people.

Fortunately, the people of California have organized themselves a government that has the capacity to write laws to make it more difficult for narcissistic homeowners to object to affordable housing in their neighborhood. Just like the California Fair Housing Act of 1963, which ended racial discrimination in housing, this change is long overdue.

Marsha Temple, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Lopez leaves out one major factor that has nothing to do with NIMBYism: transportation.

Unless this problem is tackled at the same time as the housing shortage, we are in a win-lose situation. Our roads and freeways are above capacity already.

Martha Siditsky, Simi Valley

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